Guest CNN-bashing by David Middleton (a geologist)
I ran across this April 2018 article while looking for something else. I totally missed this episode of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Secretary Zinke’s stance on climate change is one of several reasons the Climatariat News Network decided that he was being dishonest in describing himself as a geologist…
Ryan Zinke refers to himself as a geologist. That’s a job he’s never held.
By Sara Ganim, CNN
Updated 12:08 PM ET, Tue April 17, 2018
Washington (CNN) Defending his decision to shrink the Bears Ears national monument to lawmakers last week, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke fell back one of his favorite credentials.
“I’m a geologist,” he said. “I can assure you that oil and gas in Bears Ears was not part of my decision matrix. A geologist will tell you there is little, if any, oil and gas.”
[…]
CNN should have stopped right there… But it’s CNN.
In May, he criticized the work of the US Geological Survey, saying at a press conference in Alaska that “I think the assessments of the USGS has done previous, I think they fall short, from a geologist’s point of view.”
Good thing he hired my friend and former coworker Jim Reilly to run the USGS. That said, past history shows us that government agencies always grossly underestimate what the oil industry will find and produce. Alaska’s North Slope has already produced 16 billion barrels of petroleum liquids. Currently developed areas will ultimately produce a total of about 30 billion barrels. The government’s original forecast for the North Slope’s total production was 10 billion barrels. The current USGS estimate for undiscovered oil in the Bakken play of Montana & North Dakota is 25 times larger than the same agency’s 1995 estimate. In 1987, the MMS (now the BOEM) undiscovered resource estimate for the Gulf of Mexico was 9 billion barrels. Today it is 45 billion barrels.
The MMS increased the estimate of undiscovered oil in the Gulf of Mexico from 9 billion barrels in 1987 to the current 45 billion barrels because we discovered a helluva a lot more than 9 billion barrels in the Gulf over the last 20 years. Almost all of the large US fields discovered since 1988 were discovered in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1988, it was unclear whether or not the deepwater plays would prove to be economic.
Zinke, however, has never held a job as a geologist.
And? From the 1976, edition of the American Geological Institute’s Dictionary of Geological Terms…
geologist
One versed in geology, or engaged in geological study or investigation.
Nothing in there about having a job in geology.
Maybe CNN didn’t read their own article…
Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift provided this statement to CNN: “Ryan Zinke graduated with honors with a B.S. in Geology.
So did I! Well, my B.S. was in Earth Science, with a geology concentration. After graduating, I came this close (holds fingers very close together) to joining the U.S. Air Force… But, I decided to first see if I could find a job as a geologist in the oil industry. Funny thing, my first employer hired me as a geophysicist because I minored in math… Go figure.
Former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell is also a geologist. He was even one of the keynote speakers at the NAPE Global Business Summit in 2017. NAPE is a YUGE oil industry trade show. It was originally known as the North American Prospect Expo, but it got bigger.
Colin Powell Tells NAPE Audience of Ways to Decentralize Energy
by Deon Daugherty | Rigzone Staff | Friday, February 17, 2017
A non-practicing geologist, retired four-star general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell still understood the important of oil and gas throughout his star-spangled career.
“As a national security advisor, Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, energy was an important component of that work. Not only the use of energy to fuel a military organization, but the geopolitical aspects of energy,” he told a charity luncheon audience gathered for the NAPE Global Business Summit in Houston.
[…]
I guess, since Secretary Powell supported Obama, CNN is cool with him being described as a geologist.
Back to CNN…
Interior did not answer if Zinke is or has been a member of the American Institute of Professional Geologists or the Association of State Boards of Geologists.
Neither have I. Nor do I think I even know any geologists who are members of the American Institute of Professional Geologists or the Association of State Boards of Geologists. I do know lots of geologists and geophysicists who belong to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and/or the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Not that membership in professional societies are requirements to be a geologist.
Back to CNN…
Several geologists who CNN has spoken with have flagged his comments as disingenuous, saying that someone with a 34-year-old degree who never worked in the field is not considered a geologist.
Several? How many? Who? Anonymous sources… Shocking! (/SARC)
Now we get to the crux of the Climatariat News Network’s beef…
“He seems not to be familiar with modern geologic knowledge,” said Seth Stein, a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. “In particular, geologists now know that the climate is warming rapidly because of human activities. This is is causing many serious problems including rising sea level, which is a major threat to coastal communities.”
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Policy Research… WTF is that? A department of science and non-science? A search for “institute for policy research” on the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences website yielded…
Your search for institute for policy research did not match any documents.
Dr. Stein is a geophysicist, not a geologist, who specialties are plate tectonics and earthquakes… Yet he’s qualified to say that Secretary Zinke “seems not to be familiar with modern geologic knowledge, In particular, geologists now know that the climate is warming rapidly because of human activities. This is is causing many serious problems including rising sea level, which is a major threat to coastal communities.”
Really? Geologists *know* these things? That’s news to most of us.
In the last century, growth in human population has increased energy use. This has contributed additional carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases to the atmosphere. Although the AAPG membership is divided on the degree of influence that anthropogenic CO2 has on recent and potential global temperature increases, AAPG believes that expansion of scientific climate research into the basic controls on climate is important.
Geologists study the history of the earth and realize climate has changed often in the past due to natural causes. The earth’s climate naturally varies continually, in both directions, at varying rates, and on many scales. In recent decades global temperatures have risen. However, our planet has been far warmer and cooler today than many times in the geologic past, even within the past 10,000 years.
[…]
Certain climate simulation models predict that the warming trend will continue, as reported through National Academy of Sciences, American Geophysical Union, American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and American Meteorological Society. AAPG respects these scientific opinions but wants to add that the current climate warming projections could fall within well-documented natural variations in past climate and observed temperature data. These data do not necessarily support the maximum-case scenarios forecast in some models.
[…]
Geologists now know that the climate is warming rapidly…
Riiight...
Because of human activities…
Riiight...
This is is causing many serious problems including rising sea level…
Riiight…
Which is a major threat to coastal communities…
Riiight…
The only communities threatened by sea level rise are communities already threatened by sea level.
As cnn’s ratings continue to shrink, they are in “what the hell” mode and make less and less effort to conceal their hard left predjudice and their irrational contradictory ecofascist worldview.
Rats scrambling up a dung-heap.
I do hope they’re finding something nicer to eat up there than rice.
‘course they actually are, that’s why they do it.
I am completely wrong in all probability (97% interval conferdence error zero squared of about 42) *but* – shouldn’t A Geologist be concerned (more) about rocks, dirt and soil rather than atmosphere, atmosphere typically not composed of rock and thus subject to tonny tonics & sea-rises.
That, to my mind, the observed temperatures twitches actually are caused by (man-made = agricultural) changes to the dirt *and* that ‘Geologists’ want nothing to do with it gives a measure of how much shyte we are actually in.
They are trying to demonstrate how much they ‘care’ (as failing power-grab & mating strategies) to the detriment of real science – yet all they while claiming what great scientists they are.
Its exactly the sort of logic drunks use………
( *do* recognise that the primary ‘thing’ going on inside the brain of someone who is drunk is chemically induced depression – not the state of ‘Having A Good Time’)
I don’t look at rocks at work. I interpret geological data from wells and reflection seismic data. The closest I ever get to rocks are sidewall cores (spreadsheets and photomicrographs).
Sedimentary geology is a combination of paleoclimatology and paleogeography.
Geology is the study of the Earth. Petrology is the study of rocks.
Rats scrambling up a dung-heap.
One of my favourite pastimes as a teenager,…….
On the cow shed roof at dusk over looking the midden, watching the long grass move as they came to the sides,
Start up the side and get twatted with the 410.
I have never met a geologist who accepted the CAGW narrative. Full stop.
Same here. And happily that includes even the younger ones who were subjected to all the green brainwashing in high school and undergraduate school. And the same goes for engineers. Not many warmists in the ranks of those with any serious quantitative education.
I’m not a geologist but those who set me on the path of skepticism on these issues were friends that were. Indeed holders of PHDs. Paleo climate study is a sub discipline of geology. Geologists tend be skeptics because of their knowledge on such matters, not because of ignorance.
I guess I’d count as a real geologist then, as I have a BS in Geology and actually had a real job as a geologist — until I realized that “being a geologist” meant “standing in ice-cold streams in mid-winter attempting to take rate-of-flow measurements.” Ultimately the sciences of Cartography and Geodesy took me under their wing, and a career in comfortable government offices awaited me.
I would wager that geologists as a whole are probably far less likely to buy into the CAGW alarmism your garden-variety meteorologist or railway engineer, just because we’ve been educated in and seen evidence for massive climate change, in both directions, in the geologic record.
One of the most positive aspects of David’s as always informative piece is that there is always rather more oil/gas than governments think. I don’t know if this is because the officials who work for government departments are usually enviro-pessimists who think everything is always worse than the rest of us think, or they have to take their shoes and socks off to count. But the more oil and gas there is the better for us all. Sadly, David convinced me in a previous post that oil and gas aren’t produced deep within the Earth as many hoped but at least we are not going to run out soon.
A side point, we can now regard the BBC as officially a propaganda arm of the green fascist movement. Despite its charter to give even handed coverage to issues, it is no longer going to allow any dissenting views on climate history or change to darken the perception of viewers and listeners on the grounds the science is settled. I wonder at the silence of our witless parliamentary representatives about this outrage to open democracy. I wonder what they will ban next?
It’s more a function of the profit-motive. The more oil we find, the more money we make. I wish oil was infinite… But the volume of recoverable oil in Earth’s crust is large enough that we don’t have to worry about running out. As I like to say, Peak Oil is both real and irrelevant… kind of like AGW.
MC of EA.
That has been their position for a decade or more.
Google 28 gate bbc.
More evidence of the ignorance, bias, and hypocrisy of our main stream media:
Reported in the UK’s Daily Telegraph 08/09/18
Briefing note to staff from the BBC’s Director of News and Current Affairs:
“BBC staff have been told to stop using climate change “deniers” on its shows because the phenomenon is a scientific fact!”
This is totally contrary to the BBC Charter which requires balanced reporting. Also, if this is a direct quote, then it is also a further example of some possibly intended appallingly vague and ambiguous instruction. No one doesn’t believe in climate change because it’s been happening since time immemorial. Neither do many, if any, believe that atmospheric CO2 does not affect atmospheric temperatures but simply that it has only a very minor effect. What is denied is that claimed man-made CO2 emissions are driving up atmospheric temperatures and producing other extreme catastrophic climate events!
The government should immediately and formally castigate the BBC, and stop listeners’ and viewers’ funding until such time as opponents of this CC/CAGW false religion are granted equal and advance opportunity to present their case and to openly debate this subject on an equal basis on-line, on the radio and on TV. This must be on every occasion Climate Change is reported upon! The public need to be properly and fully informed of the arguments and counter-arguments involved to enable them to make their own assessments. They should not be denied balanced reporting on this subject or be terrorised by one-sided interested parties with interests in supporting these flawed theories!
Tragically, I won’t hold my breath, waiting!
CNN has 1 agenda. To impeach Trump. They will stop at nothing to accomplish that goal.
Actually, CNN’s main goal is to install socialism in the United States and Trump is rolling back all the Obama/Democrat socialist gains made over the last eight years, so they need to oust Trump to save their socialist agenda and protect the criminal Obama administration.
CNN does Geology – the “Coprolitic News Network”.
Drew Middleton tells us:
“Well, my B.S. was in Earth Science, with a geology concentration.
Back to CNN…
Several geologists who CNN has spoken with have flagged his comments as disingenuous, saying that someone with a 34-year-old degree who never worked in the field is not considered a geologist. “He seems not to be familiar with modern geologic knowledge,” said Seth Stein, a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University…”
…WTF is that? A department of science and non-science? A search for “institute for policy research” on the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences website yielded…
Your search for institute for policy research did not match any documents.
This is B.S. of a very low order- google:
“Institute for Policy Research Northwestern University and you get a whole department- Stein is clearly qualified to blow the whistle on Zinke’s bogus expertise.
https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu
Drew Middleton? He was a national defense reporter for the NY Times.
Of course I could have found the Institute for Policy Research, if it had any bearing on Ryan Zinke’s status as a geologist. And I would have spent several paragraphs ridiculing it. I settled for… WTF is that? A department of science and non-science?
The CNN Article: “said Seth Stein, a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.” I Googled Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University and it took me to the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences… Leading to a dead end.
This was a sarcastic commentary on the geologist “expert” cited by CNN.
Many universities have departments of Science and Policy… These are programs designed to teach non-science majors how to sound sciency when spouting enviro-psychobabble.
RGHE, CO2, climate change aren’t geology they’re physics, chemistry, heat transfer and thermodynamics, i.e. mechanical engineering.
CO2 and climate change prior to the instrumental record are 97% geology.
Metallurgical Engineering, to a greater degree.
Chemical Engineering also.
And let’s not forget the disciplines of logic, mathematical analysis (including statistical analysis and cross-correlation methodology) and unbiased data presentation . . . you know, those things lost by most of the CAGW crowd.
I’d say that the main thing geologists know is that when there is a theory that 97% of scientists support, it’s probably wrong. c.f. plate tectonics
Geosynclines aren’t totally dead… 😉
But a Canadian genetics scientist claims to be an expert on climate change.
More money in it.
Pfffft. We all know that
A classic…
https://youtu.be/_CBQv8Y3V4o
Field Geology 101
That’s what Lord Kelvin said and so he determined the age of the earth to prove that, ending his illustrious career on a very bad note because using the laws of physics, he was wrong.
I sometimes describe myself as a mechanic even though I stopped playing with motor vehicles as a job in 1994 doesn’t mean I suddenly lost all the years of knowledge that I’d built up just because of a change of job!
I know people who have never “used” the qualifications they got at school or university for the job they do doesn’t mean they can’t speak about those subjects.
If you had to be doing a job to be able to talk about it most if not all journalists wouldn’t be able to say anything (sounds like a good plan for many of them)
James Bull
Ah, the Slippery Slope Style of Reductive Argumentation: he doesn’t even have a science degree. Ok, he has one, but its old. Ok, that doesn’t make any difference because he doesn’t WORK as a geologist…
Sheesh, you can smell the desperation from here in Canada.
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Policy Research… WTF is that? A department of science and non-science? A search for “institute for policy research” on the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences website yielded…
Your search for institute for policy research did not match any documents. –>
https://www.google.at/search?q=institute+for+policy+research&oq=institute+for+policy+research&aqs=chrome.